The Cost of Christmas

How much are you going to spend on Christmas this year? Thanksgiving has come and gone, and the holiday shopping season is now upon us. According to a study performed by the Capitol One Shopping, Americans spent 984.3 billion during the Christmas 2024 season. This translated to roughly $1,638.00 for the average consumer. The projection is that by 2030, we will spend a total of $1.22 trillion! (https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/holiday-shopping-statistics/)

Larger families with several children may have to work ever harder to avoid the holiday spending hangover. While this excess would be better placed elsewhere, such as parents creating strong financial futures for their families, these warnings often fall on deaf ears. Christmas spending has taken a dramatic increase in recent years and shows no signs of slowing down. While the USA economy is dependent on how much we as Americans will spend this holiday time, I would like to consider the cost that was paid by those who were around that first Christmas Day—let’s think about what it cost the first celebrants of Christmas.

How would you feel if...

• Your birth would start the rumor that you were—an illegitimate son of a morally reckless woman—that’s exactly what the leaders of Israel said of Jesus. The Apostle John in John 8:38 states that they called him a child of fornication—an illegitimate child—Jesus being God knew before he was born that they would say this of him. His birth branded him an illegitimate!

• Your birth would mean the death of all two-year old boys in your neighborhood by some mentally crazed egomaniac who was threatened by a report that the King of the Jews was born. That is exactly what King Herod did according to Matthew 2:16-18. His birth brought about infanticide!

• You be so hunted down as a child that your parents would have leave the comforts of their home and flee to a foreign land that hated your nationality. That is exactly what Mary and Joseph had to do—fleeing to Egypt, a place that their forefathers had been held for 400 years as slaves. But then again this happened to fulfill the prophecy about Jesus in Hosea 11:1 “out of Egypt have I called my son.” His birth made his family homeless!

• You would be known as the man of sorrows and a friend of grief—that was what Isaiah prophesied of him in Isaiah 53:3. And a quick read of the gospels reveals the sorrow and grief our Savior endured—in the face of His sinless goodness he only received rejection and false accusation (I Peter 2:22-25). His birth cost him a life of bullying!

• You would become popular for about 3 years of your life only to be rejected in one week’s time, be condemned as a common criminal, and crucified on a cruel Roman cross. That is the story of all four gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John record it. His birth cost him to lose his life by cruel capital punishment!

• You would never marry, never have a place of your own, have 12 friends who all except one ran for their lives when you got falsely arrested

• Your dad with whom you had had an eternal inseparable and enjoyable relationship with would have to turn His back upon as you suffered for crimes you did not commit at the hands of those who committed them. His birth cost him to lose his life in loneliness!

How would you feel? I know “Merry Christmas” would not be the first words out of my mouth. Let me swipe the credit card on that! But the amazing thing about the Christ of Christmas is that He was glad to pay the price. The writer of Hebrews said it this way in Hebrews 12:2 “Let us look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Incredible as it may seem, our Savior saw us as His joy and was willing to pay the cost of Christmas in full 2000 years ago!

Let’s not forget in this season of spending and giving, that the God of the universe spent His all so that He might give us the greatest gift of all—forgiveness of sin and forever life with Him.

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT)